⚡ ConEd Cut Power to Thousands Nearby This Week — Here's What Happened

🔋 Astoria Just Broke Ground on Its Own Battery — Here's Why That Matters

⛵ 100+ Tall Ships Sailed Right Past Astoria's Shores This Week

🏗 48 New Apartments Headed for 31st Avenue

If your lights flickered or your AC seemed to lose a little oomph this past week, you weren't imagining it. As last week's brutal heat wave pushed electricity demand to the brink, Con Edison reduced voltage by 8% in several neighborhoods to protect aging equipment and keep the lights on for everyone else. One of the affected zones covers Sunnyside, Sunnyside Gardens, and Woodside — about 35,000 customers. A second zone bounded by Queens Plaza North, 33rd Street, and the East River covers Long Island City and Hunters Point, affecting roughly 17,000 more.

Con Edison says the equipment problems are contained to these specific areas and don't affect the rest of the system, but it's asking anyone in the affected zones to hold off on running washers, dryers, and microwaves until repairs are finished, and to go easy on air conditioning — if you've got two units, the company suggests running just one, set to the highest comfortable temperature. Drivers in these areas are also being asked to skip charging electric vehicles unless absolutely necessary.

The company has restoration crews working through the affected blocks, and it's a good reminder to report any outage rather than assuming Con Ed already knows — you can do that online, through the app, or by phone. With more heat likely before summer's done, it's worth bookmarking the outage map now rather than hunting for it mid-blackout.

👉 Read more: Con Edison

👉 More at amNewYork

Talk about timing. The same week Con Ed was dialing back voltage to protect the grid, elected officials and energy stakeholders gathered in Astoria to break ground on a battery energy storage system (BESS) built to help prevent exactly that kind of strain. MicroGrid Networks is installing two 5-megawatt battery systems at 24-51 49th St. — a former parking site — with completion expected by early 2027. The idea: store energy from renewable sources and release it back to the grid during peak demand, the kind of moment we just lived through.

State Sens. Michael Gianaris and Jessica Ramos joined Deputy Queens Borough President Ebony Young, NYC Department of Buildings Deputy Commissioner Laura Popa, Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens CEO Costa Constantinides, and Public Service Commission chairman Rory Christian at the ceremony. "It is an investment in resilience, in sustainability, and in the belief that our communities deserve both economic opportunity and environmental progress," Young said. MicroGrid Networks CEO Tim Dumbleton called it "an investment in a stronger, cleaner, and more resilient energy future for New York City."

This is the latest entry in Astoria's quietly growing resume as a clean-energy hub — from the Ravenswood renewable energy push to the Champlain Hudson Power Express landing nearby. Whether battery storage projects like this one actually spare us the next voltage reduction remains to be seen, but the neighborhood is clearly betting on it.

👉 Read more: QNS

Did you catch it? On July 3, a parade of Class B tall ships from around the world sailed down the East River from the Hell Gate Bridge near Randall's Island and Astoria, all the way to South Street Seaport, kicking off Sail4th 250 — organizers are calling it the largest international maritime gathering in U.S. history, marking America's 250th birthday. If you happened to be anywhere along our waterfront that afternoon, you had a front-row seat most of the city didn't.

The bigger spectacle came July 4, when 40 tall ships and 30 Navy vessels sailed the Hudson between the Verrazzano-Narrows and George Washington bridges, trailed by military flyovers Gov. Kathy Hochul promised would put "200 planes" overhead. Astoria's own moment was the East River leg — a reminder that our little stretch of shoreline had a role in a 250th-anniversary celebration expected to draw 8 to 10 million spectators citywide.

The ships aren't gone yet — they're docked around the harbor for public viewing through tomorrow, July 7. After that, four of them (including the U.S. Coast Guard's Eagle) set sail for Boston on July 8 to compete for the Five Sisters Cup, a race that hasn't happened since the bicentennial. If you want one more look before they go, now's the window.

👉 Read more: CBS New York

Add another one to Astoria's ever-growing development pipeline: permits have been filed for a 9-story mixed-use building with 48 residential units at 31-08 31st Ave. The proposed building would rise 95 feet and span roughly 37,694 square feet, with 35,864 square feet of that residential — an average unit size of about 747 square feet, which points toward rentals rather than condos. There's also commercial space and a small community facility component planned for the ground level.

Demolition permits have already been filed to take down the two-story structure currently on the site. The location isn't a bad one to build near — it's a short walk to the 30th Avenue and Broadway N/W stations, sits on the Q18 and Q104 bus lines, and is close to P.S. 234, Saint Demetrios Preparatory, and Urban Dove Team Charter School III. The applications were filed by Zengwen Ye of Arch 31 LLC, with Chang Tan of Tan Architect P.C. as architect of record.

No completion date has been announced yet, and this is still the permit stage — plenty can change before shovels hit the ground. But it's one more data point in a neighborhood where new mid-rise buildings are becoming the norm rather than the exception.

👉 Read more: QNS

👉 More at New York YIMBY

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